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Correa Reiterated Rejection to Arbitration in Chevron Case
Quito, Jan 10 (Prensa Latina) President Rafael Correa reiterated today his rejection to the decision of an International Court of arbitration of The Hague to declare itself competent to judge a claim presented by the American oil company Chevron against Ecuador.
It is a totally illegitimate arbitration, said the President today in the inauguration ceremony of the building that will house the Provincial Court of Guayas, in the Southwest port city of Guayaquil.
He explained that the first sign of absolute nullity is the invocation by Chevron of an Investment Protection Treaty signed by the United States and Ecuador to resolve cases between states and companies.
The trial Chevron lost is among private companies, said Correa, referring to the ruling issued by an Ecuadorian provincial court that ordered the transnational to pay 9.5 million USD to 30.000 inhabitants of the Amazon for the pollution caused by its subsidiary Texaco in that region.
According to the Ecuadorian Head of State, another indication of nullity is the intention of using the Treaty retroactively, as the oil company abandoned the Andean country in 1992, and the agreement with the United States came into force five years later.
According to Correa, who last September launched the campaign The Dirty Hand of Chevron, the contamination left by the U.S. oil company in this jungle region, is 85 times higher than that caused by British Petroleum in the Gulf of Mexico spill in 2010.
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